Category Archives: Diagnostic and Repair

Laptop Toshiba Satellite that will shut down almost as soon as you plug it into AC. If you run it off the battery, it won’t lock up at all and runs fine until the battery runs out.

You tried a brand new ac adaptor and still has the issue. Tried BIOS updates didn’t help. Doesn’t seem to be overheating. And you didn’t find anything noticibly wrong with the motherboard.

Troubleshooting

This is one of the most common problems with Toshiba laptops we deal with, is caused by a super capacitor called a Tokin chip. A big one – NEC/TOKIN located on the underside of the laptop mobo in the center of the cpu socket.

You can fix this problem by replacing this super capacitor with four 2.5v tantalum low esr capacitors, the value of each Tantalum must be 330 uf.

also if the laptop freezes while in use or powers down or restarts once windows has loaded the Tokin chip needs to be replaced.

If you do a Youtube search you will see for yourself, on how to replace the Tokin chip with four 2.5v Tantalum smd capacitors at 330uf rating.

If you have the right tools and knowledge you can proceed and have the Toshiba repaired by yourself .
This should be done with a IR Soldering station, but can be also done with a Hot air station or Hot air gun.

If your not good with a soldering iron, then take it to a good repair shop.

Random access memory (RAM) is one of the main components that will make your laptop run faster. Memory is used for the temporary storage and manipulation of data, when a program is opened it is loaded into RAM for quick and easy access. The more memory you have the better your laptop is going to perform because it will be able to store more data for quick access. A lot of RAM will allow your laptop to run more programs simultaneously, as well as work with larger multimedia programs. A Web-browsing laptop needs about 2 GB of RAM, while an entertainment laptop can have anywhere from 4 to 8 GB. More memory you have installed – better the performance of the laptop. Memory is one of the few parts in a laptop that can usually be upgraded.

Visual identification

A type of memory used in laptop computers called SO-DIMM (Small Outline Dual In-line Memory Module).

Most types of SO-DIMMs can be recognized at a glance by the distinctive notches that “key” them for different applications:

100-pin SO-DIMMs have two notches.

144-pin SO-DIMMs have a single notch near the center.

200-pin SO-DIMMs (DDR2) have a single notch nearer to one side.

204-pin SO-DIMMs (DDR3) have a single notch closer to the center than on 200-pin SO-DIMMs.